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The first book in the series The Knights Eternal we are introduced to a world of monsters, magic and religious fervor, how do they all blend in Robert J. Duperre’s Soultaker?

The main figures in Soultaker are Abe, Meesh and Shade, three of the Knights Eternal, so named because they are immortal. In truth, the vessels of the three nights are immortal, whenever one of them dies a new soul occupies the body. Abe is the oldest of the three, tries to decode the riddles of his religion, while Shade is haunted by visions of his dead wife Vera. The knights are tasked with keeping order in the land, a mission that seems to be getting more and more difficult lately. From the fact that the scourgers come down from their homes in the mountains, to open portals and rumors of walking dead. On their way to exact vengeance on the religious figure gone bad Ronan Cooper, and the chase for crystals, they come to the deserted city of Breighton. A single survivor relates a tale of the dead rising and attacking the city. A tangled web of mystery, horror and violence begins to unfold before the three Knights Eternal.

Soultaker is a perfect blend of a variety of genre fiction or at least sub genres of Science Fiction. The setting is overtly post apocalyptic, complete with religious fundamentalists and desert landscapes, it has a techno fantasy aspect with the ostentatious guns and magical weaponry, but also the adventurous nature of a fantasy book. That coupled with a good portion of horror. The tale keeps the readers on their toes at all time and would clearly be categorized as a page turner. Duperre manages to perfectly blend the wild west style of storytelling with the science fiction backdrop. The Knights Eternal believe in a religion called Pentmatarianism, an apparent off shoot of older religions in the world. They also encounter the scourgers’ faith in Yehoshua, which causes them some confusion. There is a lot of depth in Soultaker and it takes some unexpected turns. It is a great example of what genre fiction can do.

In some cases the movies or television shows become more iconic than the book they are based on. Often times the original piece falls into obscurity and is not given the treatment as its adaptations. For a long time that was the case of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, where the first silent movie was based on a play. The play, released shortly after the book was published, omitted the science fiction aspect of Mrs. Shelly’s story, and therefore also its greatness. In this edition of Rear View we discuss the classic science fiction novel Planet of the Apes, the victim of just such a thing.

In 1963 Pierre Boulle published his work La Planète des Singes in France and was that same year translated to English. In 1968 it was made adapted for the big screen and was then indelibly made part of our shared cultural heritage. The book and the movies, both the one from ’68 and the remake in 2001, do have some similarities, but Boulle’s overall idea has subsequently become lost. One might want to argue that it has been brought back thanks to the later franchise; Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), both hinting at similar backstories.

Planet of the Apes is more of a philosophical work, like Frankenstein or Handmaid’s Tale than an adventure Sci-Fi novel. Boulle discusses man’s use of animals for experiments and supposed superiority over races perceived as lesser. Like Frankenstein the story is told through another person’s voice. The couple Jinn and Phyllis are on a retreat in space, all alone in their little space ship, when they come across a document in a container. A message in a bottle as it were. The document is found to be the tale of the French journalist Ulysse Mérou, who is detailing his journey, together with a professor and his disciple, to the star Betelgeuse. They land on a planet similar to Earth and quickly come in contact with humans of that world. Naked and incapable of speech the wild men destroy their ship and Mérou and his companions are forced to stay in their village. The following morning the village is attacked by a hunting party, described very much like the British fox hunting groups, and those who are not killed are rounded up and placed in cages. Mérou is forced to observe, from his captivity, how the bodies of men are displayed like the game of his home world, photographed and taken as trophies.

He is subjected to experiments by other apes, chiefly orangutans, conditioning ones that he quickly recognizes from his time at school. He befriends the chimpanzee Zira, and convinces her that he has some intelligence, and he learns to speak her language, as she begins speaking his. Most of the book is a description of how the apes view humans, who they see as lower on the evolutionary chain. Man can’t speak or use the same facial expressions as Mérou is accustomed to and all attempts at teaching them is met with failure. Mérou learns that the apes are divided into classes. The orangutans who are the main authority on science, the chimpanzees who are the true innovators and the gorillas who enjoy hunting, but also steal the chimps’ ideas and use it for their own gain.

The apes live in a conservative society, where the orangutans keep any form of scientific progress contained. This has also caused their world to remain stagnant. Cornelius, Zira’s fiance, claims that the ape race sprung up from nothing several thousand years earlier, but has not evolved since. This makes him ponder whether they might just have mimicked something else. Mérou’s abilities are revealed to the scientific community and is released. He spends his days assisting Zira and Cornelius in their research, until the archaeological ruins of a city is found that might just reveal the origins of ape.

There is so much to be enjoyed by reading Planet of the Apes, and especially today. The world was different in ’63 and many of the ideas and points that Boulle tried to make were probably seen as odd and dystopian. As with any good science fiction novels he expertly took the science of his time and pondered its implications for our future. But there is more to it than that. The story is an intimate reflection on how we as a society have developed and how we chose to treat those we perceive as beneath us. It is only through the eyes of a man like Ulysse Mérou that this can be made clear. What must it be like to sit in a cage and watch ones family and friends be displayed as a prize, or try to communicate in your language when all that the listener hears is gibberish.

The book Planet of the Apes deserves to take a more prominent place in the world of literature. It does make the reader think and it is still relevant today.

Our good friend Jonathan Fesmire has now finished his novel Bodacious Creed; A Steampunk Western. Here is your chance to win an exclusive harcover edition of that book. Just click on the image and enter the giveaway.

What if the black plague wasn’t what the history books would like us to think it was? What if it was a cover up for something more sinister? This is what Pestilence from Aftershock comics tries to explore.

The years is 1347 and the group Fiat Lux is called by the church to deal with a renegade band of crusaders. Once they have dealt with the nasty business, they come in contact with a courier. A courier who seems to be ill and ends up biting one of them. After putting the man down, with great difficulty, they find a note addressed to Roderick Helms, the de facto leader of Fiat Lux. It’s a summons from the Vatican, to deal with a far greater problem than wayward crusaders.

Pestilence #1 is beautifully told through Roderick Helms himself. Through a confessional letter he has sent to is wife, he details the events from a few weeks prior. His band of warriors consists of the regular eclectic group; the joker, the brute, the clever one, the killer and the quiet one. It a standard troupe and at first glance a straight adventure narrative. The characters are familiar and it is expected that as the story continues that there will be more familiar tropes. There has definitely been an influx of zombie stories over the past years, and in order for these to become competitive the writers have to be inventive. It can be immersing zombies in literary fiction as in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, set it in history like Exit Humanity or the middle ages like Pestilence. Max Brooks hinted in his Zombie Survival Guide, that the world was no stranger to zombie attacks, and that most of them had been hidden under the guise of other plagues, and what could be more wide spread than the Black Death. It’s an interesting concept and it makes for an intriguing plot.

All in all Pestilence #1 hints at a delightful and exiting tale, with fun artwork, all the things that Aftershock Comics has proven to be experts at. They just keep on bringing awesome comics with great art, brilliant!

As previously mentioned in the first installment of Rear view, it is easy to misconstrue the style or genre of a story when one allows first impressions rule. It is the age old adage; don’t judge a book by its cover. Kourtney Heintz book The Six Train to Wisconsin might be a book that suffers from just that, but there is much more to it.

Oliver is a man with a problem and possibly a solution, or one that he is fairly certain will work. That is if he can pull everything off without a hitch. The problem is his wife, Kai, a social worker with a fragile psyche. When one of her cases, a twelve year old girl, is killed by her own father, Oliver fears for her safety, as well as sanity. He then decides to execute his plan; to kidnap his own wife and move her to his old family home in Butternut, Wisconsin. There is only one issue; Kai is a psychic. It complicates things in their relationship, as well as some very interesting ones, and he has taught himself to create a shield from her penetration. Kai has a history of self destructive behavior due to her ability to connect with the various cases. The downside to this is that whenever one of her charges get her she spirals into a depression.

After the successful abduction Kai is first furious, but after a while takes it in stride and they begin to settle in. It soon becomes quite clear to Kai that Butternut houses deep dark secrets pertaining to Oliver’s past. Firstly it is the emergence of his first love Mickey and their passion is quickly rekindled. Secondly it is the relation between him and his deceased father, the town sheriff, in particularly some peculiar business regarding his best friend’s death. When Mickey’s son suddenly vanishes it threatens to bring all the old feelings back and Kai ends up in the center of it all, even being attacked by threatening thoughts from a mysterious person.

Originally released in 2013 this review might as well have been classified as a Rear view, but as it was re-released in 2016 it will be treated as a newer book.

It would be easy to cast off Heintz first installment of her Wisconsin series as romance novels aimed at women, a genre that several literary critics turn their nose at. The reason for this is several fold; the cover, that is reminiscent of something from the late 1970’s, as well as the description, that seems to be lifted from a lifetime movie. That is quite the mistake to make though. From the first sentences the reader is plunged into the darker side of what being telepathic might entail. It is a downside that is rarely explored in fiction, if at all. Mostly the issues presented are those of how the main character is barraged by images of murder and violence, not the emotionally charged reality that Kai experiences. The kidnapping by Oliver that follows the complications at home quickly escalates the story, until it reaches a kind of quiet solemnity once they settle in Butternut reminiscent of TV shows like Ed or Providence.

It is all capped off with the mystery of Oliver’s past and the disappearance of Mickey’s son, a way to ease it into a more dramatic Midwestern noir tale. The story is expertly told by Heintz and is, perhaps surprisingly to some, a page turner, leaping from Oliver to Kai’s perspective. It moves on easily and the language is well adapted to suit most types of readers, as does the mix of genres; from the romantic to the mysterious. This story has it all. The good news does not stop there as this is only the first installment of a series and if one enjoys The Six Train to Wisconsin, one would imagine that the books that follow are equally as enjoyable.

After a few weeks where our music critic Andrew Tobias has pronounced his love for the music of his youth he now turns his focus on another area, part in thanks to the recent release of the band Arkells new single Knocking at the Door.

For some strange reason I have always had a strange adoration for music from Canada. It does not make a whole lot of sense, for the music produced in the great white north is not that dissimilar to that written in the southern part of the Americas. From the first meeting with Bryan Admas, to the anger in Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill, the soft lilting tones of Sarah MacLachlan and the qurkiness of Barenaked Ladies it seems as if Canada has been close to my heart for a long time.

So when I discovered Arkells a year ago when they were closely connected to Frank Turner, well then it was as if fate had intervened. I must say that I am a big fun of their music and lyrics that tread that fine line between sarcasm and seriousness, wrapped in a simplistic package. Their new single Knocking on the Door is a tune that includes all the pieces that have made their previous releases so great; a catchy melody, quick witted lyrics and a sharp message. It is reminiscent of a southern preachers sermon to a congregation, complete with a climatic baptist choir at the end. It gets the listener going and their hearts racing.

So get off the couch and answer the knock at the door, because it’s the Arkells waiting for you to open and discover them.

Kokoro is the sequel to Keith Yatsuhashi’s book Kojiki and continues where it ended with its masterful blend of Japanese folklore and science fiction. In many ways it is a manga or anime in purely written form and those familiar with that form of storytelling and the tropes that guide that very genre will enjoy it immensely. The difference between the sequel and its predecessor is that Kojiki more felt like an adventure novel, related to tales like Spirited Away, while Kokoro is more reminiscent of Robotech or Knights of Sidonia.

In this fashion Kokoro becomes a high octane story that moves quite fast, sometimes even a bit too fast for its own good. There is a lot going on and at times it can be difficult for the reader to keep up wit everything. The main story line takes place on a planet called Higo where a civil war is raging while Baiyren Tallaenaq, the prince of the planet is exiled away. He gets his hands on one of two giant mechs, here called mah-zin and travels to a different world. THere is naturally other parallel narratives, some involving the female cast, but they all move around the war and political intrigue at court.

As previously mentioned, this story has a lot going on. The reader is quickly thrown into the conflict, with the occasional flashback, and the exposition is quickly executed. As the story progresses it moves to a more leisurely pace, but the damage is already done. This does not mean that Kokoro isn’t an interesting story with the appropriate amount of twists and turns or inferior storytelling, the issue is that it for most readers may become too much, too confusing and too twisty and turny. This book is more geared to those who have a greater understanding of the world of manga or anime and all that comes with it.

At heart there is really just the basic story of a land ravaged by conflict and a family torn apart due to conflicts hidden in more modern tropes that some might just be too unfamiliar with. The language is still good and well adapted to the narrative and the world and relationship development is interesting as well as well executed.

In the end it is the amount of new things that is what would cause a reader to shy away, while those who are familiar with mechs, Asian mysticism and Japanese storytelling might gravitate towards it. There might even be the adventurous type who picks up this book and is introduced to a world well beyond the populist and westernized form of Pokémon, Digimon and Yo-kai Watch and then again the children who are intimately acquainted to those shows would most likely graduate to Kokoro. Whatever the case might be, there is enough proof among the pages to hint that the status of Yatsuhashi’s will grow in esteem as culture and taste catches up to it.